


Go Quietly

by goodbyesoleil



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-10-17 10:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10592202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodbyesoleil/pseuds/goodbyesoleil
Summary: Like nothing else, Alex craves the feeling of a man’s hands on his body. Not the soft, delicate, needy touch of a woman; he needs big, strong hands and a body as big as his own. He is desperate to feel what he can only describe as full and he can’t get that from a woman.Nobody can know. Nobody can ever know. Until they do, and he has to begin damage control.





	1. Open Up the Heavens

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series -- more to come, but I'm slow. This is also the first thing I've written in ages, so be easy on me.
> 
> Story title/lyrics are all courtesy of Cold War Kids.

_Do you know how long I'll wait for you?  
_ _Till I'm black and blue  
_ _And do you think we all hide from the truth?  
_ _In ways, I do_  
Cold War Kids, “Open Up the Heavens”

_Fall 2016_

Alex can’t believe he’s doing this. It seems so _normal_ for the other guys to use Tinder and Bumble to meet women, but he feels such deep, unbelievable shame in even considering doing this _one thing_ for himself. It’s just that – well he’s been in Columbus for the better part of two years and this whole time he’s been fucking pretending to like women and – he’s just grown _tired_ of it. He wants and _needs_ so much more.

Back home in Sweden, it’s easy to get his needs met. He’s got connections, contacts who don’t ask for much and who give him what he needs, including the desperately-needed privacy. But in Columbus, he’s terrified. Not even his teammates know – not even _William Karlsson_ , who is rarely more than an arm’s length away from him – and the charade is growing so old.

And so he finds himself on this stupid app with an unidentifiable profile photo (emphasizing his abs, though, because he might be ashamed but he isn’t stupid) and a fake name (his middle name, Niclas). He thinks that maybe if he’s careful, and lines up just enough lies in a row without getting tripped up, he can pull this off without anyone knowing who he is. He can be any anonymous, ambiguously foreign guy, _just here on business_ , _just this one night_. Or he can be an international student on an exchange semester. He’s got to be anything other than Alexander Wennberg, professional hockey player.

Like nothing else, Alex craves the feeling of a man’s hands on his body. Not the soft, delicate, needy touch of a woman; he needs big, strong hands and a body as big as his own. He is desperate to feel what he can only describe as _full_ and he can’t get that from a woman. And then maybe he’ll be satisfied, and sleeping with women will tide him over until he gets home in the summer.

He feels _weak_ when he knows he can’t be satisfied with what he’s got at his disposal. He is one of Columbus’ most eligible bachelors and he has a university campus full of women to choose from, but that isn’t what he wants. For years he has been struggling with this as his fate, denying it to even himself, believing that someday his attraction to men will fade away.

He’s considered telling William a hundred times. Casually, over dinner when he and the server in the bistro have caught eyes for an extended second and he felt his body come alive like it had been plugged in. He’s considered telling him when they were drunk and in the club and he just wanted to take someone home with him, someone tall and thick and who could – _no_ , he can’t tell William yet.

And it’s not that he thinks it’s anything to be ashamed of – being gay, that is – it’s just that he _doesn’t want to be gay_. Maybe Columbus would accept him. Maybe the NHL would. But he's been punched in the face enough times and called a faggot just for being pretty, for being a soft European player, without anybody knowing. He can’t fathom what they’d do to him if they knew he craved the bodies of other men like a junkie craves their next hit.

He scrolls through the app for a while, but he’s too nervous and guilty to click on anything, as if by some sorcery someone will find and trace his IP address back to him and humiliate him just for _thinking_ too hard about it. This can wait another day. He can wait another day.

 


	2. An Ordinary Love

_I spiral down again_  
 _Such a struggle just to keep an ordinary love_  
 _Ain't got the time for friends_  
 _Why am I working so hard and barely keeping up?_  
Cold War Kids – “Ordinary Idols”

 

Alex finds himself standing at the door of an apartment on the third floor of a refurbished turn of the century tenement building in downtown Columbus. He doesn’t know or care much about the value of real estate in Columbus but he knows that this building is new and nice and the apartment he’s about to walk into couldn’t be cheap.

A man named Tom answers the door when he finally works up the gall to knock on it and make his presence known. Tom is in his late thirties and married (to a woman) and desperately in search of a discrete affair with a man. Alex studies the man who answers the door – after all, they’d only seen each other’s midsections on a dating app before now – and he’s not disappointed.

He’s attractive and rather young-looking, though Alex is sure he was much more attractive in his twenties. He’s a touch shorter, a little rounder, and he wears a nice (but clearly off the rack – a thing Alex always notices) suit. He looks like a businessman, probably some kind of financier or corporate type, something like Alex’s dad probably does. But when the line of thinking goes there, he redirects quickly.

“Niclas,” Alex says, putting a hand out as he introduces himself with his assumed name. If he pretends not to be himself, it’ll be harder to be caught, or at least he likes to tell himself so. Tom shakes his hand, returning the gesture, and motions for Alex to join him in the apartment. It’s just one room with a small kitchenette and a bathroom off the entryway, but it may be just as nice as Alex’s Arena District apartment.

There’s little by way of furnishings, a large bed against the exposed-brick wall with an overstuffed white duvet and entirely too many pillows, and a small desk with a television opposite the bed. On the wall opposite the door is a line of floor-to-ceiling windows, all covered with white sheers to let the midafternoon sun in and keep nosy eyes out.

It looks comfortable – an inviting, relaxing place to take your clothes off and have casual, arranged sex with men off the internet. Alex struggled with the idea the entire walk over, all fifteen minutes with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, grumbling about how this was probably stupid or dangerous and he was going to get caught and it all wouldn’t be worth the brief high from fucking.

But he doesn’t feel any of that anxiety now, not as Tom kisses him and the older man’s strong hands begin to explore Alex’s body. They’ve sized each other up and they like what they see enough to continue, or so it seems by the way they ease into undressing and settling into the bed.

Tom looks surprised when he gets Alex on his back in the bed and pauses to kneel between his legs to really drink in what he’s got at hand. Before him is the lean athletic body of a professional athlete and although he doesn’t know that Alex is a pro, he admires the definition of his muscles, his trim six-pack, the strength of the younger man’s body. It brings a slight smirk to his lips and he takes pause.

“You’re a bottom?” Tom asks him, a twinge of confusion on his face. Alex had said that in his bio, very explicitly. He wants to be _fucked_ , he wants the touch and the feel of a man. He can fuck a girl any time and close his eyes and pretend it’s a guy. He _needs_ it the other way, now.

Alex nods, desperate and completely unashamed of it. “Yes. Please.”

Tom’s hands feel delicious on his body – the strength and powerful hands of a confident man are something he’s been craving so desperately, something he’s been so _hungry_ for. When Tom spreads his legs and moves between them, wraps his strong hand around Alex’s dick, it’s a feeling no woman can duplicate for him. And when Tom is inside him, filling him to the hilt, he tilts his head back and cries out with a pleasure his body had forgotten.

He gets exactly what he needs and it’s just past dark when Tom rolls off Alex for the last time. They lay side by side in the still room, lit only with the street lights and city lights outside the sheer curtains. Both are quiet save the sound of their breaths steadily evening out.

“So, are we going to do this again?” Tom asks, breaking open the peaceful quiet. Alex’s head throbs a little and all he wants is a glass of water, but he sits up, glancing down at the older man with a sweat sheen over his once-athletic body.

“We could. Yeah, I’d like that.”

He worries about getting too close, making mistakes if they get too comfortable, too familiar, but he’s so selfish and he just _wants_ this so much he refuses to entertain the thought of fucking it up just yet. He’s supposed to meet Bill for dinner soon – _really_ soon – and he already feels a little guilty that he’s going to show up to Hyde Park smelling faintly like sex and looking freshly fucked. Tomorrow the team leaves on a road trip and he’s got to leave this behind; he’s got to tuck this thought, this experience back somewhere deep in his brain for the next week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, sorry this took so long. I rewrote it at least 3 times and I'm the worst ever. xo


	3. Part of the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is caught in a web of lies by his secret lover and his best friends, and he loses his grip on everything around him.

_I wish I could be the one who's shining, who's always honest_  
 _And I feel the daze driving to right my wrongs_  
Cold War Kids, _Part of the Night_

There's a second time. And a third. And a fourth. And it becomes a thing, a regular thing where Alex -- Niclas -- meets Tom once a week in the studio loft in the city. It's comfortable and easy and they both get what they need, what they believe they shouldn't have.

Once a week eventually becomes twice, and sometimes a third time on Tom’s lunch breaks and then it’s any time the two of them can steal just enough time from their normal lives and meet at the loft.

It also, inexplicably, becomes more than a sex thing, where Alex and Tom spend increasingly more time laying in bed afterward, sweaty and tangled beneath the covers, enjoying the quiet presence of each other. There is no conscious decision, at least on Alex’s part, for things to shift but strangely it's comfortable. It feels good.

It feels good to be held, to have his hair played with, to be flirted with. He forces himself not to think about it coming from a thirty-something married man, because he's never had anything gentle like this before and it actually feels good in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever allow himself. He's never even had a regular sexual partner, someone who easily fulfilled everything he needed.

Suddenly it’s a cold, dark December afternoon two months into this, when Tom is waiting for Alex with his arms crossed, staring outside through the sheers when Alex enters the room.

“Alex,” he says flatly, coldly, using the real name Alex never actually gave him, as he turns toward the blonde and begins to close the distance between them.

Alex’s stomach sinks. “Oh.” How did he mess this up? He had been so careful not to leave anything incriminating behind. He almost never spoke of himself, he never got personal.

“I knew something about you was unusual. I couldn't figure out your irregular schedule, your accent…but then I went to the hockey game, and there was your face, your smug little Swedish face all over the big screen.”

Alex backs himself against the door, feeling the panic and impending doom of being outed and he just wants to dissolve. He meant to be anonymous here. He meant to be just any twenty-two year-old off the street. This was supposed to be his safe space. He never factored someone existing in both spaces.

“Look, it's a secret. Please. Nobody knows. Please.”

Tom can hear the panic in the younger man’s voice, he knows he's got a leg up on him suddenly and it's showing all over his face in the predatory way he looks ar Alex. His terrified pleading only encourages the sinister grin -- he's got complete control. Something innocent, harmless has seemingly turned dark and Alex can feel the walls pushing in on him.

“Maybe I lied about my name, but at least I'm not fucking married,” Alex says, feeling cornered, remembering he's got his own blackmail. Tom backhands him firmly and he’s shellshocked, bent over clutching a nose filling with blood.

“Fuck you. You don't know anything about me and you'll never find my wife. But you? You. Oh, I could ruin your career if you even consider trying.” This is everything Alex was terrified of. As soon as he had finally let his guard down, hellfire rains down on him.

“Please,” Alex pleads. “My friends don't even know. I can't come out. I can't. I promise, I won't fuck with your family.” Tom has him backed against the wall, a hand around the taller man’s throat. But Alex is bigger and makes his own strength known when his large hand locks around Tom’s wrist. “Don't,” he warns.

“From here on out, I make the rules, and nobody finds out. Simple, yes? If you walk out the door right now, there's no coming back, and I can't promise rumors won’t start swirling about you being a fag.”

Alex shoves him in an uncharacteristic fit of aggression but he doesn't say no. He can't say no. He knows this is dangerous and stupid but he's in too deep now. He can't back out.

\--

“Why is there blood on your shirt?” William Karlsson asks as he sits across from Alex at their favorite dive bar, at half past ten o'clock on a Tuesday night. The bar is mostly empty save a few university boys chugging Bud Lights in the corner.

Alex glances down to realize a small line of blood has dribbled down his gray shirt. “Oh, I had a nosebleed earlier,” he says, and it isn’t entirely a lie.

“Earlier, like when you weren't answering my texts,” Bill snips with a smirk. Alex has been letting their line of communication drop more frequently lately; something has caught his attention and none of his friends can figure it out. Even now, Alex looks distracted.

“Hm? Yeah. Sorry.”

His web of lies is increasingly hard to keep up with and it's gotten hard to remember what white lie he's concocted to explain his social absences lately. Seth has noticed, Boone has mentioned it a few times.

“Where were you earlier? We all went for dinner without you.”

“I was just, like, busy.”

“Doing what? Have you got a girlfriend or something? You're just... lying about fucking dumb shit. Where is your head?”

Alex doesn't wait to hear the whole question, there's a $20 and a half-drank vodka tonic on the table and an empty seat where he used to be.

\----

Bill texts immediately: “What the fuck is going on with you? Talk to me.”

“Girlfriend, okay? I'm not ready for anyone to meet her.”

“So she comes first now?”

Silence.

\---

The sex, inexplicably, gets better. Tom’s power trip translates to bed, and he has found the way to bring a professional athlete to his knees. Alex has a submissive side he didn't know he had inside him that bows his head and does as he's told.

Tom uses it for good, not bad. The sex gets better and the intimacy is still there; it doesn't become a cold, unpleasant place to be. Fucking hasn't become a chore.

His favorite thing is to use their leather belts to tie Alex’s wrists, to pin him to the bed and torture him until his body is weak and desperate, to bring him to his edge before making him feel so good his body trembles and his English words cease to make sense anymore.

And then he nurses him back to good and they spend a little time laughing at something stupid on television until Tom has to shower and redress and leave for his suburban life.

Sometimes Alex stays. Sometimes he's too exhausted and afraid of running into his friends in the apartment building they all live in.

He takes the long way home, walking in the wet darkness of a Midwest winter night, his loafers full of freezing cold slush, his ankles chilled to the bone. He's half a block from his building and there's Bill, walking out of a hotel bar with a nameless blonde.

Alex tries to hide, avoid eye contact, pretend they never met, but he can't. He's been seen.

There's a deep purple mark on his neck and dark bruises on his wrists hidden under his pea coat and he's sore, so sore he walks with a limp that Bill points out right away.

“I slipped, in the snow. I'll be okay.”

But Bill isn't fooled. He's done being lied to, and he's determined to catch Alex before he fades away completely. 

 


End file.
